In the continuing efforts to redesign the Puppets in Melbourne site, I’ve finished the ‘about me’ page. (Also, upgraded the blog software finally) I’ve done considerable work to shorten the content down to the bare essentials, with a little background about my work, some useful stats (memberships with puppetry organisations, awards, etc.), plus a separate ‘page’ describing other things that I do and the School of Puppetry site.

See the old design here; compare it to the new page here.

A couple of things that I left out but wanted to add/might add later: top five reasons I like shadow puppets; and a link for a downloadable CV. Frankly, since losing my job in 2008, there hasn’t been much to show on my CV other than this website, so I don’t feel comfortable adding it online. That and I’d rather not have my more personal info on the net given last year’s debacle with online harassment. I’ve tried to keep a lighter tone to the text too, and was tempted to add to the ‘memberships’ list - “Unofficial member of the Chocoholics club". A number of web designers list their ‘tools’, so I was tempted with a variation on the same, with the normal tools for shadow puppetry, plus lots of chocolate.

One thing I have done is the continued use of the shadow puppets as featured elements on the page. Instead of using it to link to an ad for the puppet itself - as with the home page - I’ve used the images as navigational links between the different sections of content. (And those playing at home may not realise that it’s the exact same css trick I described here for the School of Puppetry site) Because of the background of the new design, I was sorely tempted to make the site horizontally scrolling (instead of vertical), but couldn’t think of how to make it work with the background image. It doesn’t easily fade into itself horizontally, but works better vertically - it ends up looking like the ’shelf’ at the bottom fades into very long steps vertically. Anyway, instead of fiddling around with the background, I thought why not use this css trick? Instead of doubling the space used on the page, you use the same amount of space twice. It’s far better this way I think. (Although I have no idea yet how I’m going to design the blog page to fit in with the new look)

Part of what’s missing though is something I’ll look into adding another time: scrolling or fading smoothly between each section of content. What happens now is that you ‘jump’ to the next section and ‘jump’ back. I’d like to do smooth fading, but alas haven’t found, a) a code that works in combination with the css trick, and b) a code I understand how to use. Maybe this will be added, but for now, the page is good enough to work - that and I’m going to have to get moving on the more important, and most tricky part of the site, the actual product pages… Anyway, the ‘about’ page is done and I can move on.

… Oh, and if you missed it: my mermaid shadow puppet was featured in an Etsy treasury. She sure does get around!

EDIT: Oh, f*ing… I see now that the ‘about me’ texts have managed to get into the RSS feed. Sigh, please ignore.